1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of local dimming a light source, a light source apparatus for performing the method, and a display apparatus having the light source apparatus. More particularly, exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of local dimming a light source, which is used for driving a light source including a plurality of light-emitting blocks by individually driving the light-emitting blocks, a light source apparatus for performing the method, and a display apparatus having the light source apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatus includes an LCD panel displaying an image using optical transmittance of liquid crystal molecules and a backlight assembly disposed below the LCD panel to provide the LCD panel with light.
The LCD panel includes an array substrate, a color filter substrate and a liquid crystal layer. The array substrate includes a plurality of pixel electrodes and a plurality of thin-film transistors (“TFTs”) electrically connected to the pixel electrodes. The color filter substrate faces the array substrate and has a common electrode and a plurality of color filters. The liquid crystal layer is interposed between the array substrate and the color filter substrate.
When an electric field generated between the pixel electrode and the common electrode is applied to the liquid crystal layer, the arrangement of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is altered to change the optical transmissivity of the liquid crystal layer, so that an image is displayed. The LCD panel displays a white image of a high luminance when an optical transmittance is increased to maximum, and the LCD panel displays a black image of a low luminance when an optical transmittance is decreased to minimum.
However, the LCD apparatus may produce more glare compared to other types of display apparatuses, such as cathode ray tube (“CRT”) and plasma display panel (“PDP”) display devices. The LCD apparatus displays an image by using the backlight assembly to generate light, so that the luminance distribution of the LCD apparatus may be different from the luminance distribution of a CRT or a PDP display device. Therefore, the LCD apparatus may cause increased user eye strain.
Recently, in order to increase the contrast ratio of an image and to decrease the power consumption, a method of local dimming a light source has been developed, which individually controls amounts of light according to positions of light sources to drive the light sources. In the method of local dimming the light source, the light source is divided into a plurality of light-emitting blocks to control the amounts of light of the light-emitting blocks in correspondence with dark and bright areas of a display area of an LCD panel corresponding to the light-emitting blocks.